Oh I see, Northeastern now gives max $30k for NMF. And yes, I believe Drexel discontinued their NMF scholarship.
If Alabama is on your radar then ASU, U Kentucky, Old Miss, and Oklahoma should also be.
The cost of attendance for an out of state student at UT Austin is over $52,000 a year.
UT Dallas OOS cost is over $49,000.
I don’t think either school is going to dish out substantial aid to an OOS student. UTD might still have the reduction to instate tuition for students who get scholarships over a certain amount…but UTA does not.
I’m not sure I understand the money amounts you are posting in post 12.
@thumper1 I will try to clarify, I listed in state tuition because we are in state but UT Dallas offers FULL tuition plus for their scholarship so it doesn’t really matter if you are instate or out of state for you UT Dallas, the out of pocket expenses would be the same. Their scholarships are not restricted to instate and are stats based. I rounded the number up in my prior post here are examples with exact figures from their web site.
Tuition instate $12,162 out of state $ 33,654 R&B$10,668 Books and materials $1,200
National Merit is Full Tuition plus $4000 a semester cash stipend, plus $1500 on campus housing allowance per semester
Tuition $0 (in or out of state) + RB + Books =$11,868 - $11,000 = $868 out of pocket per year for National Merit
AES Honors (average new SAT 1540 or ACT 34) is Full tuition plus cash stipend of $3,000 a semester
Tuition $0 (in or out of state) + RB + Books =$11,868 - $6000 = $5,868 out of pocket per year for AES Honors
AES Distinction (average new SAT 1470 or ACT 32) is Full tuition plus $1,000 a semester
Tuition $0 (in or out of state) + RB + Books =$11,868 - $2000 = $9,868 out of pocket per year for AES Distinction
There is a chart here if you scroll down http://aes.utdallas.edu/prospective-freshmen/awards
*AES awards are holistic so you could have lower test scores but high grades or higher grades and lower test scores and still qualify. Residency does not matter for these awards and they give free tuition to qualified international students but not the cash stipends unless the student has a green card. All of the above scholarships are for 8 semesters, if you finish your degree early they can also be used toward grad school.
I agree that UT Austin doesn’t give much merit to in state or out of state. Probably should not have even mentioned it on this thread. Sorry for going off on my own tangent about merit vs prestige.
If he’s similar to his older siblings, why can’t he get full scholarships within 5 hours like they did?
@twoinanddone OP stated up thread that the merit aid that was available 5 years ago when older children were starting college is no longer available or reduced, that’s why she’s looking for other options farther away.
UA Huntsville also offers great stats based merit and is known for their engineering program
http://www.uah.edu/admissions/undergraduate/financial-aid/scholarships/merit-tuition-scholarships
I thought there was a post somewhere that listed several merit scholarship and the OOP costs at various schools but I can’t find it. @mathmomvt you mentioned making a spreadsheet I hope you are looking at out of pocket cost after merit is applied. Make sure you note if outside merit stacks - it know it does at OU and UTD but not at TT if you have National Merit. Also make sure you factor in each year the award is good for and fees OU is has some crazy fees and even though the official scholarship is good for 5 years it doesn’t cover ‘fees’ for that 5th year and also note for national merit OU and UA only provide housing scholarships for the first year. So many moving parts, it’s difficult to compare apples to apples!
I don’t think anyone in my house can take U Kentucky seriously. For some reason, they were really, really interested in my oldest, who never showed any interest in return. But they sent him mail weekly for months, I believe even after the deadline saying that he could still apply. We never figured out why they were so persistently interested in him. So, University of Kentucky is kind of an ongoing joke in our house. 
UKentucky also requires a pretty high GPA to keep the scholarship. I have a d19 considering engineering and that high GPA requirement moves that school far down our list of potential schools.
Actually, I think even if it wasn’t engineering, it would be an issue.
The kid has Canadian citizenship, so a Canadian school may be among our least expensive options. (My husband and I both went to school in Ontario, so we know most of the options up there.)
Not sure how far away you want to look, but my D (not NMF but very high GPA/ACT) got full tuition at Pitt. Her other great options were Temple, Kansas and Truman State (close to full ride). She chose Pitt. It was cheaper than instate flagship–where she refused to go anyway–too close to home.
For my similar S18, we may add some of the more southern options (Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky, Richmond, Delaware, Trinity, Tulsa, Oklahoma currently under consideration).
How far I want to look is 8 hours drive. But I think we need to look further to get a few good options that will be almost guaranteed to be affordable. And once we’re beyond driving distance, pretty much anything goes. But we’re not near an airport, so anywhere that’s a flight will be a hassle for visits home, especially if the college is also not easily accessed from an airport.
I’m very interested in this thread: My son has some good stats (1470 SAT, 4.20 GPA, lots of APs, from top 10 HS in in NJ)
He is looking to pursue a Game Design degree, I am gently steering him to Computer Science as more practical - but the math involved intimidates him a little. I would love to find a school that gives great merit aid in this region as there is no need based aid that he would qualify for: On the list so far is:
TCNJ
Rutgers
RPI
WPI
RTI
Drexel
Quinnipiac
Becker
Are any of these schools likely to give a good amount of merit aid (looking to get COA into the low 20’s) or should some others be added? If so, any suggestions are welcome.
TIA - what a great resource this forum is!
@DemonDad. I would recommend UT Dallas. They have a Game Design degree as well as computer science and there are kids who double major. They have great scholarships and if you get an AES scholarship you are automatically in state.
@DemonDad I can tell you that Drexel, RPI, and WPI may offer merit awards that look like a lot (in the 18-20K range) but that won’t get your out of pocket cost into the low 20s.
My oldest (now a year+ graduated from college) was interested in game design but studied CS instead, and is now not in game design by his own choice – the industry is tough. He did an internship at Zynga one summer, but has decided to work in educational software and make games with friends on the side. But if your son is not interested in the coding piece of game design, then taking CS instead will probably not be as good a fit.
–Robyn
@mathmomvt, it’s been 2 years now, but S2 received enough merit to lower the cost to under $30 at the following:
University of Minnesota
University of Pittsburgh
Temple University
St. Olaf
Case Western
Illinois Institute of Technology
South Dakota School of Mines also came in very reasonable with guaranteed merit but he decided not to apply.
He applied as either an engineering major or geology/earth science major. He had a 3.8 gpa, SAT score over 2200.
The best deal came from IIT, which had our total out of pocket under 15k. He/we loved IIT, but ultimately decided on University of Rochester, as he wasn’t quite sure about engineering and wanted a school that offered a wide variety.He also loved the music and arts available at UR. (cost was low on UR, but mostly due to need-based aid + merit).
He started in engineering the first year, but is now a geology major 
here were the best options we found when we started with this list
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
Alabama
Ole Miss
Alabama Huntsville
those were the automatic scholarships based solely on stats, you hit the right numbers and you get the $$$
then we went to this list
http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/
which was interesting because it seemed to include a range of truly competitive scholarships which might be as hard to win as getting into an Ivy, all the way to “competitive” scholarships that for all intents and purposes are virtually guaranteed with good enough stats and should almost be on the previous list. these seemed to be the ones who offered the most $$$ for good stats:
Utah
New Mexico
UT Dallas
Michigan State
Mississippi State
Nebraska
SUNY-Buffalo
we have been using the US News site to compare overall ranking, Undergrad Engineering ranking, and Graduate Engineering ranking
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges
Thanks for the comments/suggestions everyone. I think we will add U of Alabama, U of Texas Dallas, U of Utah and a few others to the mix. Ideally, would like to keep within driving distance to him - but the Northeast seems to be tight with merit.
One interesting lesson for my son, if a school costs $60k a year - dad or mom need to make $100k to net down to $60k after taxes. The true cost of college is staggering.
Yes. On top of income taxes being progressive, college tuition is progressive, providing a multiplicative effect on the sticker price. For a family in the highest tax bracket, the true cost of a full-sticker 4-year degree is $500K+.
My son started getting UKentucky mailings after Jan 1 of his senior year. At first I thought it was sloppy marketing but then I realized that it was actually very clever. Look at all the high stat kids who only apply to impossible reach colleges and then in April realize they have nowhere to go. A UKentucky mailer would definitely have gotten a close look if that had happened to us.